1968-Voice Of The Tennessee Walking Horse 1968 January Voice RS | Page 68

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person. He never hurt anybody and he was a good
church-going man and a good father.” Without stop­
ping he said, "You know something. Sugar . . . when
I was up at his house the day he died and saw some
of the things he had, it like to broke me up. That man
had torn out every picture of me and my horses that
had ever been printed and had 'em put up on his
wall. Just me and Jesus Christ.” Turning toward
Helen and holding up his right hand he said, "I swear
. . . just me and a picture of Christ praying was all
he had on the wall of their living room.”
A week had gone by and Lonny Barnes hadn’t done
much work. He had gone about the business of taking
care of the horses but his heart hadn’t been in his
work. He just tried to keep busy but everything he
touched in the barn reminded him of Little Joe.
He was about to wash down a hot horse when he
was surprised to see Little Joe’s boy walk into the
barn. "Morning, Mister Lonny. How’s it going?” he
said, as bright and chipper as could be. Lonny was
glad to see him, and said, "Well, look who’s here!
How you doing, Martin Luther? Your maw’s doing
fine, 1 hope." After a bit of small talk Lonny began
to sense that the boy wanted to say something but
just couldn't find the words. "You got something to
say, Martin Luther, well, just go ahead and say it.”
The boy broke into a big grin that showed a double
row of perfect white teeth. Almost without taking a
breath he said, "Mister Lonny, 1 want to go to work
for you, I talked to Maw and she said I could do bet­
ter with you than I could working a bread truck, and
I went to several horse shows last year, and I heard
Paw talk about it, and, and . . .” Lonny straightened
up and, smiling, said, "Wait a minute . . . not so
fast. Slow down! You mean you want to give up your
good job at the bakery and get into the horse busi­
ness working for me?” "YES SIR,” was the resound­
ing answer.
At supper Lonny was talking to Helen with the first
enthusiasm he had shown in over a week. As he dug
into a second piece of apple pie he looked up and
said, "That boy’s got a good pair of hands and works
like a Trojan and he’s smart as a whip.” Helen just
smiled and nodded her approval as Lonny kept talk­
ing. "He’s got a high-school education and isn’t mar­
ried and looks like he may have the interest it takes
to get along in the horse business.” Helen was about
to say something when the phone rang. Lonny got
up and answered it, "Don? How are you? Say ... let
me tell you what happened. Did you ever meet Little
Joe's young son Martin Luther? Well, he started to
wor